And we are back to ink reviews, at least for a few days. Don't tell anyone because it's still a bit of a secret, but I'm declaring September to be "Pencil Month" and will be only using graphite distribution devices for an entire month. More on this to come...
Anyway, this ink was sent to me by Paul and it's one that I was glad to get as a sample, since I would not otherwise try it. You might also notice that I have once again changed my review format, this time going back to a blank page of notebook paper since my other preprinted forms were a great format, but on horrible paper. I will get back to those once I get some decent printer paper but for the present we will make this work. And now that the preamble is out of the way, here is the full review that you can click to enlarge and read, if you like:
Midnight Emerald is a dark blue-green ink, that really reminds me of Iroshizuku Shin-Ryoku. Looking at that previous review I linked, I don't think they are actually that close in color (and, of course, Shin-Ryoku was one of the bottles of ink that I did not bring to VA), but they have a similar feel of being the green of a forest full of pine trees.
Overall this was a well behaved ink. Granted, I used it on nicer paper but I found no feathering or bleeding and it fared well under a highlighter:
Like I said, this is a darker ink and fairly saturated, yet it still manages to give some shading if you are printing. Maybe it's just me, but when I write in cursive I don't see much shading in any ink, but printing brings out the best of any ink.
Really the only bummer here is a severe lack of water resistance. This is the first FC ink that I've tried, so I have no idea if the rest of the line is also not water resistant, but a girl can always dream, right? On the other hand, it cleaned out of my pen without problem, so no complaints there.
Overall, this was not a bad ink to start with in my experience of the FC ink line. While I would not buy a bottle of this for myself because of the lack of water resistance, I would recommend it for anyone who is looking for an easy to use dark teal. They are also quite fairly priced, at $12.50 for ~60 mL. I know FC is an American company, but I have no idea if they make their inks in-house or outsource that, but if the inks are fully made by them in Raleigh then I'm all for American-made for a great price. You can check out their offerings here, and I am digging some of those browns/oranges...
This ink was provided to me for the purpose of review. I am not being compensated for this post in any way and all opinions above are my own. You are free to disagree with me if you like.